Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter (12 November 1615-8 December 1691) was an English Puritan theologian and writer. He was a major nonconformist leader and an advocate for "benevolent slavery" with the goal of Christianizing enslaved Africans.

Biography
Richard Baxter was born in Rowton, Shropshire, England in 1615, and he became a Puritan minister at Dudley in 1638. In 1641, he became a minister at St. Mary and All Saints' Church in Kidderminster in Worcestershire, and he became known as a Presbyterian who was prepared to accept a modified Episcopalianism. During the English Civil War, when the Anglican Cavaliers fought against the Puritan Parliamentarians, he was forced to flee the Royalist stronghold of Worcestershire for Alcester. He returned to Kidderminster after the Battle of Naseby, and he urged slaveholders across the Atlantic Ocean to follow God's law in converting slaves to Christianity. Baxter supported benevolent slavery and compared cruel masters to incarnate devils, and he falsely claimed that many slaves were voluntary. From 1662 to 1687, he was repeatedly persecuted and imprisoned for his beliefs, and he died in 1691.